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BOARD Software FSN Innovation Showcase 2018 BOARD Software © Copyright 2018 FSN Publishing Limited. All rights reserved 2 Letter from the Leader of the Modern Finance Forum Dear Colleagues, FSN’s Innovation in the Finance Function Survey 2018 is one of the largest surveys of its kind covering responses from more than 1,000 senior finance professionals worldwide. It is the first time that there has been an in-depth study of attitudes to innovation in the finance function and it reveals startling insights about the appetite for finance innovation, including the impact of Gary Simon culture, attitudes to risk, organizational politics, style of project CEO FSN & Leader of the Modern Finance Forum investment and levels of confidence in measuring return on LinkedIn investment. (You can download a free copy of the full report and analysis here). The research shows unequivocally a strong link between innovation and performance. Those organizations that are early adopters of technology or invest in innovation in a balanced way across the enterprise outperform organizations that are diffident and risk averse. These leading finance functions close their books faster, produce more accurate financial forecasts and are less tied to legacy systems and traditional ways of working. Regional differences, especially between economically advanced and developing nations, colors attitudes to where investment is most needed in the finance function. Nevertheless, wherever finance professionals reside and no matter how sophisticated their investment plans, all agree that the number one priority for innovation is around the need for better business insight. Yet earlier FSN research, (The Future of the Finance Function 2017) highlighted that only 6% of CFOs understand the technologies available to them. Only 37% know what solutions are available in the market and only 25% of CFOs have the time to investigate opportunities for technology innovation. Determining the innovations that will help companies achieve better business insights is the first step on their journey. 3 Letter from the Leader of the Modern Finance Forum With this in mind, FSN has created the “Innovation Showcase”, an opportunity to bring to the attention of hard-pressed finance professionals what we consider to be leading innovations in core finance processes that could materially improve the way you work both now and in the future. Our work this year covers ten leading vendors and, in this document, we showcase the work of BOARD Software, a leading provider of a Decision-Making Platform which unifies BI, planning and analytics. We hope that you find the innovations set out in this document thought-provoking and interesting. But above all we hope that the contents will inspire you to explore innovation in your own organization and discuss with colleagues how you can leverage these developments to take your finance processes to the next level. Gary Simon Gary Simon CEO FSN & Leader of the Modern Finance Forum 4 INNOVATION SHOWCASE 5 BOARD Software Innovation Showcase THE BOARD SOFTWARE INNOVATION SHOWCASE BOARD's entry into the global corporate performance management (CPM) and business intelligence software market almost 25 years ago heralded a new and innovative approach to business software – something that may even have been described as ‘disruptive’ if that term had been popularized in 1994. But it hasn't stopped there. Even today, BOARD continues to be at the forefront of disruptive technologies such as predictive analytics, search based analytics, self-service and next-generation collaboration. At a time when global software providers were assembling CPM offerings through a frenzy of company and product acquisitions, BOARD brought a fresh approach to the sector. Rather than acquire a series of products from different stables that were destined never to work seamlessly together, BOARD developed a unified product from the ground up which would meet the corporate reporting, budgeting, planning and forecasting needs of large multinational organizations. It’s an approach that has stood the test of time. In an ever more complex world marked by exponential growth in data volumes, BOARD continues to offer disruptive new features in response, and smart CFOs appreciate a single product environment which unifies business intelligence, performance management, analytics and data discovery in one place. In this showcase we highlight three major BOARD innovations, namely; its holistic design, machine learning for predictive forecasting and analysis, and finally, a leading approach to embedded communications. 6 Innovation 1: A holistic approach to decision-making Innovation 1: A holistic approach to decision-making Almost three decades after the first CPM solutions appeared in the market many finance functions are still struggling with the basics of reporting. For more than 85% of finance professionals, finance process standardization and automation remain a very high priority (FSN Future of the Finance Function Research 2016). There are two major fault lines in the financial reporting process. Firstly, the process itself is fractured, and secondly, the data which is supposed to support the process is fragmented and siloed in different functional areas. It’s a view supported by several FSN studies. The Future of Financial Reporting survey identified that 40% of finance functions say their data is not always trustworthy and accurate, and 69% of CFOs rely on spreadsheets to plaster over gaps in their reporting process. Two thirds admit they are struggling to master the variety and volume of new business data and 58% concede that valuable data is scattered across the organization. Finally, almost half (48%) say other functions are not good at sharing data with finance. BOARD’s innovation is relatively uncontested in the market as few software vendors offer a holistic approach to performance management. At the core of BOARD’s decision-making platform is a single unified environment in which all the performance management applications share the same data and metadata (structural information such as account codes, organizational hierarchy, cost centers). This is not only essential for preventing wasteful duplication of data, but it also ensures the integrity of the underlying data, i.e. consistency of information across business processes and in all reporting dimensions. Workflows also span the entire process, and unlike much of the corporate reporting landscape, BOARD users can dip into their reporting processes and underlying data in real-time. Nobody has to wait until month end to get visibility of performance, which is crucial in fast moving markets. The unified platform ensures easier reporting and greater staff productivity, providing a sound foundation for decision making by linking strategic, operational and financial plans and metrics. Of course, navigating such large volumes of data requires user-oriented tools that allow data to be explored and sifted by finance professionals, and data visualization techniques that readily lend themselves to discovery of issues and trends. Using BOARD’s navigation tools, the finance function can follow information uninterrupted from an enterprise-wide view of operational performance at the top, right down to individual reporting units and functions in any part of the organization in real-time. 7 Innovation 1: A holistic approach to decision-making However, innovation through new software presents its own set of risks, including project failure. BOARD seeks to reduce this risk with fast prototyping using a Proof of Concept (POC) approach. It reduces the risk of a ‘bad fit’ by assisting purchasers to understand and assess the value of a potential solution and the organization behind it. A POC is a form of prototyping a trial application – a close approximation to the final deliverable, but without the finishing touches. It helps to ensure that what is discussed in a pre-sales environment ends up being delivered in the final product. The POC style of development is most powerful when it is combined with a product that can be rapidly modeled, developed and changed as the requirements develop. BOARD’s innovative toolkit approach to application development means that solutions can be built very quickly without having to call on IT specialists. Not all Proof of Concept systems are transformed into the final application. The Proof of Concept is of course conceptual - a journey of discovery and almost by definition iterative in design. But well executed, a POC is an innovative way of delivering a high level of confidence in the development of a CPM system without taking unnecessary risks. Like all the best innovations and ideas, the simplest is often the best. Even today, only 61% of CFOs say that the BOARD always has a complete view of business performance, and only 50% say that ad-hoc questions about performance can usually be answered immediately in a BOARD meeting (FSN Future of Financial Reporting 2017 research). The productive effect of a unified environment that enables complete visibility and confident decision-making across the organization is a powerful business tool. It is as innovative today as it was all those years ago. 8 Innovation 2: Automated machine learning for predictive forecasting and analysis Innovation 2: Automated machine learning for predictive forecasting and analysis Capturing more business insight is top of mind for CFOs and interest in predictive analytics as a way to improve the speed and quality of business forecasts is at an all- time high.
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